David Corn, Matt Cohen:With a War Against Iran Brewing, Don't Listen to the Hawks Who Lied Us Into

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With a War Against Iran Brewing, Don’t Listen to the Hawks Who Lied Us Into Iraq
Here we go again.
David Corn
Matt Cohen


Shortly after the news broke that a US airstrike in Baghdad ordered by President Donald Trump had killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, Ari Fleischer went on Fox News and proclaimed, “I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani.”

Here we go again.

Fleischer was press secretary for President George W. Bush when the Bush-Cheney administration deployed a long stretch of false statements and lies—Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with al Qaeda! Saddam had WMDs! Saddam intended to use WMDs against the United States! Saddam’s defeat would lead to peace and democracy in Iraq and throughout the region!—to grease the way to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. In that position, Fleischer was a key spokesperson for the war. Prior to the invasion, he promised the war would lead to a bright future: “Once the Iraqi people see that Saddam and those around him will be removed from power, they’ll welcome freedom, they’ll be a liberated people.” Instead, Iraq and the region were wracked with destabilization and death that continues to this day. About 200,000 Iraqi civilians lost their lives in the chaos and violence the Bush-Cheney invasion unleashed, and 4,500 US soldiers were killed in their war.

Back then, Fleischer was just one of many cheerleaders for the Iraq war inside and outside the administration. In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush-Cheney officials (including Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney), neocon pundits, Capitol Hill lawmakers, and some liberal pundits were beating the drums of war, inciting the public with claims that Saddam was a direct and immediate threat to the United States. They insisted that a war with Iraq would be quick, easy, and cheap and turn Iraq and the Middle East into a bastion of democracy brimming with gratitude to the United States. They were wrong, they were misguided, they were arrogant, and in some cases they outright lied to whip up fear and boost popular support for the war. With Trump’s attack in Baghdad prompting talk about another US war in the Middle East, it’s a good time to remember those who misled the public prior to the Iraq war, so if they now try to participate in the national discourse about Trump’s potential war with Iran, we won’t get fooled again. At least not by them.

At the top of this list, of course, are the key architects and salespeople of that war: Bush, Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. None of these people should be given a podium—unless they come clean with the mother of all mea culpas. Colin Powell, the secretary of state at the time, may be a slightly different case. He became the No. 1 pitchman for the war, delivering an important speech at the United Nations weeks before the invasion to lay out the case for military intervention, but he was widely known at the time to be hesitant about the assault. He still has not disavowed his support for the attack, but he did concede in 2015 that the Bush-Cheney administration made “terrible strategic mistakes” during the war.

Whether or not the Bush-Cheney gang ride into the current picture, we will be seeing some of the same commentators from 2003 who paved the path to war. Here are a few to watch out for:

Sean Hannity: The Fox News loudmouth was pushing the same bombastic style in 2003. A month before the invasion, he declared, “We’re going to go in and we’re going to liberate this country in a few weeks and it’s going to be over very quickly. No, it’s going to be over very quickly. And what I’m going to tell you here is, you’re going to find, I predict, mass graves. We’re going to open up those…gulags and those prisons and you’re going to hear stories of rape and torture and misery, and then we’re going to find all of the weapons of mass destruction.” In the aftermath of the Soleimani attack—no surprise—he hailed Trump. As the top propagandist at Trump State TV, he will undoubtedly blow a similar horn this time.

David Brooks: Shortly before the invasion of Iraq, Brooks, then a writer for the Weekly Standard, participated in a panel discussion and summed up his support for the war by asking: Don’t you believe the people of Iraq desire democracy just as much as we do? It was really that simple for him. Days prior to the attack, he penned a column poking fun at people who approached the question of invading Iraq as a complex matter, and he praised Bush for being “resolute.” Bush’s manner seemed to matter more to him than pondering the possible consequences of the upcoming war. Now at his perch at the New York Times, will Brooks once again try to make the simplistic seem sophisticated?

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/with-a-war-against-iran-brewing-dont-listen-to-the-hawks-who-lied-us-into-iraq/